


With You For Today

by Reyka_Sivao



Series: Piperverse Standalones [10]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek - Various Authors
Genre: F/M, Healing, Mental Health Issues, Pon Farr, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Therapy, Trauma, pon farr fucks everything up, the sex part is entirely beside the point here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:02:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29795766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reyka_Sivao/pseuds/Reyka_Sivao
Summary: Seven years ago, pon farr brought them together. The only thing Piper regrets about that is the trauma it left her Vulcan husband reeling from after his own biology betrayed him.With her support and the help of a good healer, Sarda had come to terms with it...except now, he’s facing it again. And well, it’s the mother of all triggers, and he’s gonna have to deal with that.(Shoutout to years of therapy for inspiring T’Kau. She’s all my best therapy sessions personified.)
Relationships: Piper/Sarda (Star Trek)
Series: Piperverse Standalones [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2171973
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	With You For Today

**Author's Note:**

> In the interests of not triggering anyone outside the story...this fic involves suicidal thoughts. I’m gonna add specifics in the endnotes so you can decide if you want to read it, without spoilers for anyone who doesn’t want them.

“Piper.”

I blinked away from the report I’d been staring at unseeingly. “Hmm?”

Sarda was standing near me...but not quite near enough. 

“There is something I must speak of.”

Oh. Wait. Serious conversation time. 

I shook my head to try and dislodge the jumble of overlapping reports, and turned to face him fully. “Okay. What’s up?”

Sarda hesitated, and then clasped his hands stiffly behind his back. “It is almost time.”

For a moment, my mind went totally blank. Time? Time for what? Not something on the ship’s calendar, not judging by the thread of concern weaving its way through the bond. 

I focused on that thread. ‘Concern’ was...approximate. The closer I looked, the more it fractaled out into a thousand shades of emotion, from careful calculation to hope to absolute _terror._

I blinked again as that last emotion clicked something in my brain. “Oh,” I said. “OH. Almost time.”

Sarda nodded, and a fleck of relief was added to the mix. 

I stretched a little and stood up. “So. Time for some shore leave?”

“Are you willing to make the arrangements?”

I nodded. “I can do that. How long is ‘almost time’?”

“Perhaps a month.”

“Oh good,” I said. “That’s plenty of time.”

Something still rippled through Sarda, and I closed my eyes for just a moment to try and feel it.

I looked up and met the concern in his eyes and smiled as gently as I could manage. 

“Hey,” I said softly, and stepped toward him. “It’s gonna be ok, all right? It’s gonna be ok. As far as anyone else is concerned, we’re just due for a bit of shore leave...and as far as _I’m_ concerned, well…”

I held out my hand to kiss his fingers. “I’m here for you.”

Too slowly, Sarda held out his own hand, but stopped. 

“Here for you,” I repeated, closing the distance. “And here _with_ you. It’s gonna be ok.”

—

I made the practical arrangements...scheduling shore leave on a nice planet, checking the timing against Sarda’s sense of how long it would be, and dealing with the crewmates who were _way_ too invested in our ‘second honeymoon’. I didn’t have the heart to tell them it was our first. 

“I call dibs on it being a girl!”

Ok, I snort-laughed at that one. 

“Excuse me, Scanner, what in the universe makes you think this is a plot to get pregnant?!” I made a mock-offended sound. “Vulcans pop up when their parents program a replicator for one. We’ll probably be playing chess and debating cosmology.”

The gathered crewmates laughed and dissipated, until only Scanner and Merete, our oldest friends, were left. 

“Are you SURE you’re not gonna make me an honorary uncle?” Scanner wheedled. 

I laughed. “I’ll see if Sarda wants to program the replicator.”

“You better,” said Scanner cheerfully. “But anyway. Engineering needs me.”

That left only Merete. 

“You gonna be ok?”

It was soft enough that you’d have to struggle to hear it from more than a foot away. 

I let my smile fade. “I am,” I said. “Not as sure about Sarda.” 

Merete was one of the _very_ few people who knew what had happened last time—how Sarda hadn’t had anyone to turn to, how I had ended up beside him, begging him on the strength of our already-deep friendship to tell me what was tearing his control apart, demanding that he let me help, until he’d snapped and formed a desperate bond between us. 

I hadn’t regretted it for a single moment since. _Sarda_ , on the other hand, had felt monstrous and violated by his own biology. Even once we’d decided to repair the bond and officially be together, he had struggled. 

With time and effort, we had put it behind us...and now it was back. Clearly, Merete could count to seven and add two plus two.

Merete nodded. “If you need anything.”

It was somehow a complete statement, an offer, and a question.

“If we do.”

She nodded and turned, and left me to my thoughts. 

—

The first two weeks of Sarda’s month passed quickly enough for me. Being the first officer of an Intrepid-class starship helped with that. But I tried to make sure to offer Sarda as much reassurance as I could manage. 

I got back to our quarters from another uneventful shift to find Sarda dressed for meditation, with a lit lamp in front of him. 

But he wasn’t meditating. 

I frowned. 

The pose was right. The lamp was right. But instead of the gentle shifting sensation of his thoughts ordering themselves, there was only blankness. 

Slowly, I walked around to face him. 

His eyes were as blank as his sense through the bond. 

Was he? Had it come sooner than he thought?

No. No, it wasn’t that, not yet. This was something else: Either a flashback, or him doing his level best to fight one off, and at some point there wasn’t much difference. 

Carefully, I sat down cross legged on the other side of the lamp. I debated mood lighting vs fire safety for a moment, and then extinguished the lamp and set it aside. 

“Sarda.”

I sat, and I waited. 

Slowly, vision came back into his eyes. I wanted to touch him, but something told me to hold off. 

Finally, he blinked back to awareness. “....Piper,” he said through dry lips. 

I nodded. “I’m here.”

He took a long moment to himself. 

“You seem concerned.” I said that, and then I bit my lip and let it _stay_ there. 

Sarda nodded slowly. “I thought I would be able to do this,” he said softly. 

“You can,” I said. 

It might have been the wrong thing to say. 

Sarda’s lips tightened, and I could see the internal debate play out on his face. 

“I have been attempting to ignore it,” he said in almost a whisper. “But today I could not hold it back.”

“It?”

Sarda closed his eyes. “There is a part of me,” he said carefully, “that would rather die than go through this again.”

I bit back the first two things I wanted to say. 

_Please don’t!_

_I would miss you!_

He knew those. He knew those things, and _both_ of them made it about me. 

Slowly, I nodded instead. “I...understood,” I said softly. “God, Sarda...I’ve been in your mind, and I _still_ can’t even imagine.”

Sarda opened his eyes, but didn’t look at me. 

“You said a part,” I said, as gently as I could manage. “So...is there a part of you that wants to live?”

He did look up at me at that, if only for a moment. 

“Yes,” he said unsteadily. 

I tried to ignore the different ways my heart was pulling. 

“Maybe you could talk to T’Kau?”

Our healer had helped him immensely after our first time had left him flashing back and dealing with trauma. He hadn’t had a flashback in _years_ , as far as I knew. 

He nodded slowly. “Perhaps.”

“I wish I’d thought to suggest it before,” I said. “God, Sarda...this is the mother of all trauma triggers, and you shouldn’t have to deal with it alone.”

He didn’t answer that. 

I shifted a little on the hard floor. “Is there anything I can do to help, just right now?”

Sarda stared at the floor. “I do not know.”

I let that sit for just a moment. 

“Can I touch you?”

Sarda considered, and then let out a long breath. “I believe...clothed touch might be acceptable.”

“Shoulder rub?” I offered. 

Slowly, Sarda nodded. 

I stood and started to move around behind him, and then stopped. “Uh, can we sit on the bed? My frail human ass doesn’t like the floor.”

Sarda stood and followed me to the bed. He sat down in his usual crosslegged stance, while I let one leg hang carelessly off the bed. 

I placed my palms flat on his shoulder blades. 

He was so tense. 

Slowly, I started moving my hands in gentle circles, just to increase the area of contact. 

“Helping, or stressful?”

More circles. His muscles weren’t untensing enough for me to notice a difference. 

Finally, he let out a small sigh. “Helping.”

I nodded at his back. “I can do more of a massage, if you want me to work on your muscles?”

He took the moment he usually gave himself to give a question due consideration. 

“No,” he said. “Please continue in this manner.”

“You got it.”

I moved in circles on circles. Sometimes I shifted to ovals or ellipses to spice things up, and vaguely imagined my hands orbiting his shoulder blades. 

“Piper.”

“Hmm?”

“I believe I am…”

He trailed off. 

Circles on circles. 

“What are you?”

“I believe I am going to cry.”

Grief caught in my own throat, but I nodded it away. “You can cry.”

For a long, long moment, the only sound was the brush of hands on the fabric of his robe. 

That, and his breath. 

It was carefully even, at first. Controlled. Held perfectly level. 

Then it faltered and lost its rhythm. 

It gained a harsh edge to it as his throat started to tighten. 

With one more long, shuddering inhale, it became impossible not to call them sobs.

He bent forward almost double, curling in on himself around his core. I followed him with my hands, doing my best to maintain the comforting rhythm. 

Something that sounded like words choked through his sobs, but I couldn’t understand them. 

“What do you need?”

He couldn’t speak. He opened the bond and shoved the sense of his meaning at me. 

_Hold me._

I crawled forward and wrapped myself around him. “I will,” I whispered. “As long as you need.”

—

T’Kau’s face filled the small communications screen. 

“Hey,” I said. 

“Greetings. How have you been?”

I tightened my lips. “Me? Pretty good. Sarda…”

She nodded slowly. He had just finished his own conversation with her, and was resting in our quarters looking like he’d just run a marathon. 

“It is a difficult thing.”

I closed my eyes in pain. “I...yeah. Yeah.” I looked up again. “I just need to know what I can do to help, and what I can NOT do to avoid fucking up worse.”

“You seem to be doing quite well at supporting him. From what he has told me, you have made an effort to both listen and offer him choice without judgement.”

“Surely there’s more I can do.”

T’Kau regarded me in silence for a moment. “I do not believe you truly understand the value of what you offer...especially the latter. He is facing having all choice stripped away from him...allowing him, even in small ways, to take back his own volition is of immense worth.”

I swallowed away another spike of pain on his behalf. “I wish I could do it for him.”

T’Kau nodded. “You can be with him, without judgement. You can let yourself be the rock upon which the wave of his experience spends itself. You cannot take on this trial for him—but you may be able to catch him when he stumbles until he makes his own way through.”

“...okay. I mean. It’s not...what I wanted to hear, I guess, but...it’s enough.”

“What is, is. We can only alter our own course of action in response to it.”

I took a long breath. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll think more about the philosophy later. For now...uh...what _practical_ arrangements should I make? Our first time wasn’t exactly enlightening on how it _should_ go.”

The ghost of a smile graced T’Kau’s serene lips. “Indeed, it would not have. And I can certainly provide you all the information you need. But first—where will you be? I hope to arrange plans that happen to have me passing nearby as your shore leave begins.”

I raised my eyebrows. “...you make housecalls?”

“On occasion,” said T’Kau, inclining her head. “I believe he may benefit from additional support in the day or two before it truly begins. However, it is sometimes preferable to allow the assumption that I simply happened to be near enough that meeting in person was only logical.”

Slowly, a smile twitched on my lips. “You sneaky bastard.”

“The human habit of using insults as compliments is endlessly fascinating,” said T’Kau mildly. 

I nodded. “We’ll be on Argo,” I said. “Our leave starts in ten days.”

“Oh? It just so happens I will be there.”

Gratitude swelled my heart until I was worried about my blood pressure. “T’Kau...thank you.”

She nodded. “I am glad to be of service. Now—did you wish me to answer any questions, or shall I begin by listing my usual advice for new couples?”

—

The next few days were mostly normal for me, interspersed with the beginnings of what preparations I could do ahead of time. 

Sarda was….mixed. 

Crying in my arms seemed to have drained some of the worst for him, at least for a while. It came in flashes that I could sometimes feel through the bond even while I was on shift—we kept our shields fairly high while on duty to limit distraction, so this was very much out of the ordinary, if not _unexpected._

“Commander?”

I blinked, realizing with a start that I had zoned out on the bridge. “Sir?”

The captain smiled. “I asked what our current speed was.”

“Warp 6.5.” I _had_ been paying attention before I’d zoned for a minute.

“You must really need that vacation.”

I laughed as easily as I could manage. “Looking forward to it, sir! It’s been a minute.”

“And longer still since you took your husband along, huh?”

“You know Vulcans,” I said. “I’m pretty sure we’re in a polyamorous relationship with his science lab.”

“How _ever_ did you manage to drag him along?” the captain teased. 

“Oh, I have my ways,” I said with a smirk, and then leaned forward conspiratorially. “If a phaser on stun goes missing when we leave, don’t worry about it.”

The captain actually laughed out loud. “That hard to get him to take a break?”

I grinned back at him. “Oh, you have _no_ idea.”

The captain was still giving me a shaking head, but I settled back and watched the screen and tried to avoid nipping at the inside of my lip. 

It was going to be ok. It _was_. But right in this moment, the only gift I could offer Sarda was managing the assumptions of the crew, and damned if I wasn’t going to put everything I had into it.

—

A week till shore leave started, closer to ten days left by Sarda’s estimate. 

I was staring into the depths of my civilian clothes, debating the merits of packing every single one of them right now just to feel like I was doing _something_ and just living in my uniform.

Slowly, I realized Sarda was looking at me. 

I let out a breath and tried to shove the distraction of the clothes aside, and turned to face him. 

“Hey,” I said. “Something on your mind?”

He nodded. 

I moved to sit down on our bed. “Wanna tell me about it?”

“I spoke to T’Kau again today.”

They hadn’t had that arranged for today, as far as I knew. 

I nodded and raised my eyebrows in slight curiosity.

He took another moment.

“I had another episode of desiring death.”

Human blood tasted vaguely of copper, I thought as I tasted it on the inside of my lip. “I’m glad you spoke to her.”

“She gave me much to think about.”

“Anything you’ve thought about enough to share?” I said. 

“I do not... _want_ to want to die.”

I took a moment to think about that, and try to find some even vague parallel of my own to get a sense of what it was he was telling me. Maybe...maybe that feeling of gleeful schadenfreude I sometimes got and then instantly felt guilty about?

It probably wasn’t a _great_ analogy, but the equal-and-opposite-emotions aspect kinda gave me a starting point.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “I think I understand.” I looked up and met uncertainty in his eyes. “I mean, I _believe_ you,” I said. “And I will try to understand as well as I can. I’m...I’m hearing you.”

He nodded. “She made me understand that I….”

He paused to order his thoughts. 

“That it could be different.”

“Different?”

He looked distant. 

“Sarda?” I said, worried he’d hit another flashback. 

He shook his head just slightly. “I am here.”

I let him take another moment. 

“I...no longer worry about hurting you.”

I blinked in surprise. “Then what’s the problem?” I said, and instantly regretted it. “Wait, wait—let me try again: I am surprised, because I thought that was the primary concern for you, but I would like to understand better.”

It still took deliberate effort for me to speak in ‘Vulcan mode’, but sometimes it was important. 

“I believed it was as well. T’Kau led me to realize the error I had been making.”

“Oh?”

God, Vulcan-normal conversational pauses could be _excruciatingly_ long to poor impulsive humans. 

“Originally, that was my concern, yes. But between T’Kau’s wisdom and your efforts to demonstrate the fullness of physicality over the years...I seem to have internalized the truth that I will not pose you any danger.”

“That sounds like a good thing?”

Sarda hesitated. “It is an improvement.” He took a full, even breath. “However...it seems that while the part of my mind that keeps track of concerns—even illogical concerns—has accepted this truth, the same is not true of the part of my mind that _experiences_ these concerns. Thus, I am left in the rather unenviable position of fighting demons that I am aware do not exist.”

“Sounds fun,” I murmured. The bitterness was on his behalf. 

“Indeed,” said Sarda, long since used to my habit of saying the opposite of what I meant. 

“So.” I looked up at him. “Does this understanding change anything about what you need from me?”

“I find myself...slightly less in need of reassurance of your safety,” he said. “However…”

He trailed off, and then sighed. “There is something I need,” he said softly. “Only I do not know what it is.”

I nodded. “That’s okay,” I said. “I can suggest specifics as they occur to me? But mostly...right now, I’m here to listen and let you take the lead.”

Sarda closed his eyes in something I could only call grateful pain. 

“I shall consider any such suggestions,” he said. “And...I will attempt to convey any similar ideas that occur to me.”

I found myself smiling. “Please,” I said. “Please do tell me. I would want it so much.”

He nodded, not really in understanding, but in a more deliberate belief that he chose to have for my words. 

“Is there anything you want right now?” I asked. “Anything that...would let you feel like you get to decide?”

Sarda frowned slightly, as though considered a possibility he had never considered.

“That would...let me feel like I get to decide?”

“Yeah,” I said, pretending I was thinking something new and not following our healer’s advice to the letter. “Like, I dunno. Maybe you can’t change the big stuff, but if you wanna choose between ‘rub my shoulders’ and ‘hold me’ or between ‘reassurance’ and ‘I need space’...I want to let you.”

“You want to give me back control.”

“Yeah. I can’t...I can’t do that for the big stuff, no matter how much I wish I could. But if I can offer it in small ways...just...I just want you to know that…” 

I swallowed. “That your life is yours. Your body is yours. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.”

He nodded at the pace of a temporal anomaly, if it was one that slowed time . “I do not want to lose myself,” he murmured, mostly at himself. 

“I know,” I said softly. “But I promise to find you.”

—

His hands were shaking, and he wasn’t hungry. 

Four days to shore leave, right around a week until we faced Sarda’s demon. 

I watched his hands as he clenched them to try and stop it. He felt me and looked up. 

“It is...a physical symptom. Primarily.”

I nodded. “I hope that makes it easier.”

He looked down again. 

“Hmm,” I said. “I have an idea.”

I rose and dug through a drawer for a moment. 

“Here,” I said, returning and showing him the bottle of lotion in some kind of floral scent from a planet we’d visited. “Maybe it would be too much, don’t hesitate to tell me. But would you like it if I paid some attention to your hands?”

Sarda regarded the bottle for a moment. “May I smell it?”

I opened the bottle and held it out. 

Sarda inhaled the scent deeply, and then looked down at his hands again. 

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I think I would like that.”

I smiled and pulled up a chair. Sarda clenched his hands one more time, and then slowly loosened them and offered me one. 

“Thank you,” I said, taking it in mine. 

For a moment, I just held it, gently, letting it tremble. 

“Beautiful,” I said softly. Then I took a little of the lotion and painted it down his palm. 

The usual telepathic sparks flickered between us, but I didn’t pay them much attention, just let them dance in the background. Another time. Right now, I was focusing on his body. 

Carefully, I drew the lotion down each finger in turn, giving each one some time. 

Normally, this kind of thing was incredibly hot between us...but right now, it wasn’t sexual, just comfortingly sensual. 

I turned his hand over to make sure the back and knuckles weren’t neglected. 

“Piper?”

“Mmm?”

“You wished to know if I thought of anything that might help.”

I looked up from my task and smiled. “I would love to hear it.”

“You called my hands...beautiful.”

“Only because they are.”

Sarda looked at me. “I found it...comforting,” he said. “Perhaps, if you continued to speak positively of my body, it would help.”

“Oh, I could do that for _years,_ ” I said. 

I ran my hands down his from wrist to fingertip a few times to finish it off, and then picked up the other and looked at them side by side. 

“They _are_ beautiful,” I said. “Every part of them. From your long fingers to the things they’ve done to me to the texture of your skin to the muscle memory encoded in them. There’s so much here in these hands, Sarda, and I think that’s beautiful too.”

Sarda let his eyes drift shut. 

I laid the first hand to rest gently on his lap and smiled a little when it lay there peacefully. 

With another bit of lotion, I turned to repeat the process on the other hand, and treasured Sarda’s small reprieve. 

—

Two days. 

I didn’t want to think too hard about the other number. 

Sarda was letting me play with his hair. 

“It’s so soft,” I said, combing my fingers through it. “And shiny. Like...I dunno, something shiny.”

“Your analogy leaves something to be desired,” Sarda murmured. 

It was lighter than that of most of the Vulcans you saw in starfleet—in some lighting it approached blond, and in others it veered coppery enough I’d almost be tempted to tease him about being a ginger, but most of the time it was a brassy shade in between. I tried to think of things made of brass. 

“Like….uh….doorknobs?”

Sarda tilted his head up to look at me. He was lying on the bed with his head between my legs.

I laughed sheepishly. “We had brass doorknobs back on Proxima. It’s the only thing my brain is offering me that’s the right color.”

“I suppose they are both meant to be touched by your hands.”

“Why Sarda!” I said with a grin. “That’s the most romantic thing I think you’ve ever said to me!”

Sarda’s eyes had drifted closed, but I sensed the telepathic equivalent of a smile. 

Maybe we would be ok.

—

It was the last shift before our “vacation” started. 

Normally, I kept the bond shielded, but today I had the gates thrown open, trying my best to bolster Sarda’s erratic controls. 

Right now, a labmate was asking a simple question, and Sarda was fighting off the urge to slug him. 

It reminded me _way_ too much of seven years ago—I hadn’t known the source of Sarda’s faltering self-restraint at the time, but even then I had managed to steer him clear of a physical altercation when one had threatened to manifest. 

I tried to focus on serenity...and when _that_ didn’t work, I projected the image of the set of restraints we kept in the bedroom. 

Sarda managed to answer the question, and then turned his attention toward me again. 

His response was the mental idea of a tribble. 

I blinked. 

Tribble was our safeword. 

We very rarely had occasion to even need one, and had _never_ used it telepathically. 

I stretched and looked at the clock. Two hours. 

“Hey, captain?”

“Yes number one?”

I cast a bored look at the planet we were orbiting already. “Time is crawling _backwards,_ ” I complained. “I know I asked for my leave to start _tomorrow…._ but…” I shrugged. “If you can’t arrange anything more interesting than a geological scan of a federation member planet, any chance I could skip town early?”

The captain’s lips twitched. “And leave all the fun to us?”

“Hey, never let it be said that I never sacrifice for the crew.”

“Well….you know what, I think we can handle things here. You go have fun.”

I grinned and jumped to my feet. “Think science will let me steal my Vulcan?”

The captain laughed. “If they don’t, pull rank on them.”

I grinned and saluted. “Aye, captain!”

—

I hurried down the hallway, trying not to look like I was hurrying down the hallway. I sent Sarda the sense that I was coming for him. 

I nodded with an entirely fabricated grin at the handful of officers inhabiting the science lab. 

“Hey commander!” said one. “Looking to chat with your spouse?”

My grin held the tiniest glimmer of truth this time. “Chat? Oh, more than chat. I need him for an important away mission involving careful scientific testing of all this planet’s finest intoxicants.”

“...a drunk Vulcan must be a sight to see.”

“A privilege,” I corrected. “Where is he?”

“Over in room six. Said he was working on a delicate experiment.”

I made myself laugh. “If he’s gotten started on that _scientific testing_ I had planned, I’ll never let him hear the end of it.”

That earned a round of laughter that let me escape with a jaunty salute, and finally join Sarda. 

He was sitting in the dark, trembling.

“Sarda,” I breathed. “I’m here. I heard you.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything. 

“Can you get back to our quarters?”

He took a deep breath. “With your help.”

I caught the hand he lifted and helped him to his feet….and then pulled him into an embrace for an eternal second. 

“Okay,” I said, pulling away, and focusing on the contact between our hands. I let support flow through me, and Sarda clung to it. 

I waited until his breathing evened out, and he opened his eyes, looking something like his normal self. 

“I was being joky with them,” I told Sarda. “Let me keep it up so they don’t ask questions, okay?”

Sarda bit his lip but nodded. 

“If they want a response from you, just raise your eyebrow judgingly. That should cover most anything.”

Sarda took one more breath, smoothed his face out, and inclined his head at me gracefully. 

The small smile I offered him was genuine. The loud grin I put on to face the door, not so much. “Ok. Let’s go.”

—

We made it through the gauntlet of well-wishers and finally, finally made it through our door. 

I let out a breath heavily.

“Well. That was a lot. Next time, I’m giving us a couple extra days.”

Still holding my hand, Sarda froze. 

My stomach sank as I slowly started to grasp the magnitude of the mistake I had just made. 

“Next time,” Sarda whispered. 

“Sarda—” I clenched his hand tighter and spun to grasp his shoulder, but it was too late.

“Next time,” he repeated. “ _Next time.”_

“It’s not—”

I don’t even know what I would have said. 

“It will not be _over,”_ Sarda rasped though his desert-dry throat. “It will never be over. There will always be a _next time._ ”

“Sarda—!”

He didn’t hear me. 

“There will never be an end. I will _always_ face this. The fire cannot be extinguished…”

I pulled him violently toward me and squeezed as though I could physically force this experience away from him through his skin. 

“Sarda,” I begged into his shoulder. “Stay with me. Please stay with me.”

His thoughts through the bond weren’t on me. 

They turned to the transporter dispersal pattern. 

To an airlock and no suit.

To a phaser on kill. 

I somehow pulled him even tighter and physically pulled him closer to the comm unit. 

“Computer,” I said. “Contact T’Kau of Vulcan.”

 _Working,_ said the computer mildly. _Call accepted._

T’Kau looked out from the screen. 

I don’t know if it was my tear-streaked face she saw first, or Sarda’s shaking form in my arms, but she didn’t need any words from me. 

“I am near,” she said. “I will come.”

—

I buried Sarda in my arms, _needing_ him to feel me through the chaos of his experience. 

It felt like a few seconds. It felt like a few centuries. 

The door buzzer rang. 

“Come.”

I almost didn’t care if it was someone else. 

“Well,” said T’Kau softly. “Sarda, it has been some time.”

A current of shock stung through Sarda’s form, momentarily disrupting the warp speed Möbius strip of thoughts that tormented him.

“H...healer?”

“It is fortunate that I was nearby,” she said, as mildly as ever. “Perhaps you would like to sit down?”

I nudged him when he faltered, guiding him toward the bed, until together, we half-sat, half-fell down on it. 

T’Kau pulled up a chair and folded her hands in her lap. I loosened my grip on Sarda just enough that he could shift to see her. 

“I see that you are hurting.”

Sarda closed his eyes. “I cannot. I cannot do it.”

I hugged him tighter and tried to contain my grief.

“Can you not?” said T’Kau, very softly.

Sarda shuddered in my arms, and his breath shook, and without warning he was heaving open sobs. 

“Do not _make_ me.”

“I will not,” said T’Kau softly. 

I bit back a moment of overwhelming _anger._

“But if you are willing,” she said without altering her tone, “I can help you find a place from which you can try.”

Sarda swallowed until he could speak, and then looked up at her. 

“Will you make me want it?”

His tone was desolate. 

T’Kau shook her head. “No. I will never change who you _are._ My only work is to guide you through your own self, until you find those aspects that you most wish to nourish.”

Sarda’s breath was still labored and harsh. 

“I do not think there is any part of me that wants this.”

I squeezed my own eyes shut in pain. “Is there any part of you willing to stay with me?”

It was a true question. I needed it to be a real question. I had to know, because if there was no part of him willing to try, then this had passed beyond what I could do. 

But if there _was_. 

If there was the smallest part of him willing to fight. 

“You bondmate asks a valid question. There may well be nothing in you that _wants_ this. But there may yet be a small part of you willing to bear it.”

“It will come again,” whispered Sarda. 

“It will.”

“If I live, it will only be to face it again.”

“Will it? Is that the _only_ thing you might experience?”

Sarda looked up at her. 

“If you chose to live today, that says nothing about tomorrow. If you choose to live through this time, that says nothing about next time. All it does is give you today—or the years until next time—to live as you choose to live.”

I was stroking Sarda’s back. I wasn’t quite sure at what point I had started. 

There was a long pause, through which the only sound was Sarda labored breath. 

“...today,” he whispered. 

T’Kau nodded. “That is the only question I wish you to answer—whether you will live for today.”

Sarda closed his eyes. He was still trembling, but...perhaps less violently?

“Only for today?”

“That is all I wish to know.”

Sarda turned his attention toward me. I was still trying to contain the mess of emotion under my skin, but I knew I wasn’t completely succeeding. 

“A day with you,” he whispered. 

I nodded, my throat too choked to talk. 

He clenched his teeth and closed his eyes and I could _feel_ him set aside the future. 

“For today,” he said. “I will live.”

—

I’d arranged us a nice room. 

Getting there was a bit of a blur, and I was eternally grateful to T’Kau for taking point and spinning some story that implied we were showing her around for the afternoon and let us beam down without overly concerning the transporter crew. 

For Sarda, simply walking normally enough to maintain that fiction had drained everything he had left, and by the time we made it to the door, he was leaning heavily on both of us. 

We managed to coordinate six feet toward the bed, and guided Sarda down to sit. His eyes were closed. 

T’Kau pulled back and regarded us. 

“I believe it would be best if I left you to yourselves for now. If you need me, I will be a call away.”

I nodded. “Thanks,” I managed to force out my throat. 

Then we were alone. 

I turned back to Sarda, suddenly as hesitant as we had both been at the start of our relationship. 

I could see the tactic T’Kau was taking...but at the same time, all Sarda could offer me right now was today. So I would take today. 

“Can I hold you?”

Sarda nodded slowly without opening his eyes. 

“Can I hold you in our underwear? I want to feel your skin.”

Again, a small nod. 

I tossed my uniform aside, and then slowed down to focus on his.

“Here you go,” I murmured, helping him raise one exhausted arm, and then the other. “Here you go.”

I sat down beside him and slipped an arm behind him, slowly guiding him down to the sheets. He _almost_ seemed to relax slightly. 

I moved down to pull his pants and boots off, but of course left his underwear untouched, as I had said. 

He wasn’t ready. I hoped he would be, but for the today he had promised, he was not ready. 

I slipped in beside him and pulled the coverlet up over us both.

Sarda turned and wrapped his arms around me. 

My brain glitched in shock. For the state he was in, it was a bold move.

“With you,” he said softly.

I swallowed back my fear of what that might mean for tomorrow.

“With you,” I answered. “For today.”

—

I opened my eyes. 

It was tomorrow. 

I turned my attention to Sarda. His arms were still wrapped around me as they had been in his sleep, but he was awake. 

“Sarda,” I murmured. 

He hesitated. “Piper.” 

It was too soft. 

“Please don’t tell me goodbye.”

Sarda closed his eyes and breathed. “For the moment,” he said softly, “I can bear it.”

I hugged him tighter and managed to bite back a sob. “I won’t…” 

A choke caught my throat. I had to struggle for a moment against it until I could speak.

“I won’t force you. I won’t...I won’t stop you either.” I swallowed and pulled him tighter. “Every breath you offer me is a gift I will treasure.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and the tears I was trying to hold back spilled out. 

“For...today,” murmured Sarda. “For an hour.”

“For a minute,” I responded. “For a breath.”

Sarda trembled. “...a breath.”

I closed my eyes and listened to his breathing as we lay together, locking it away in my heart as the treasure I had promised. 

After a minute, he took a few weaker, shallow, panicked breaths. 

“What if—”

I squeezed. “No what if,” I begged softly. “Only now.”

“It cannot be now forever.”

“It can be now for _now.”_

He didn’t answer that. Just held me and offered me the gift of his breath. 

We lay there for a long time. I watched light and shadow slowly moving across the floor as the planet’s sun changed its angle. Sometimes I rubbed Sarda’s back or arms. Sometimes I played with his hair. Sometimes I just rested my head against him. 

Sarda took a long, shuddering inhale, and then spoke. 

“Piper…”

My throat closed up and my heart froze, but I forced it back enough to speak. “Sarda.”

“It is...perhaps a day more that I can hold it off, if I make an effort.”

“Are you going to make that effort?”

Sarda hesitated, and began trembling again.

I closed my eyes and held him.

“I….if I...it…” 

Another shaky breath. 

“If I...do not...if I stop holding it off…”

I blinked my eyes open as his words went a different direction than my grief and fear expected. 

“If I stop holding it off, it will start now.”

“Sarda,” I breathed, as I slowly heard what he wasn’t saying. “You’re...you’re going to try.”

He was still shaking. 

“If I live today, I have a day with you. If I live tomorrow, I have seven years with you.”

I pulled him into my chest and let the tears flow. “Sarda,” I choked, but his name was all I could force out. 

Sarda’s arms clenched around me. 

“I will be lost,” he whispered. 

I swallowed my tears. “I will find you.”

Sarda closed his eyes. Through his skin, I felt that aching eternity of indecision. 

Then he let go.

—

The fire in him was warm. 

That surprised me, distantly, as I was washed by a wave of emotion and sensation. Hadn’t it _burned_ last time?

Sarda existed in a state of….something. Altered awareness? Unawareness? Hyperawareness?

Language and logic were distant memories as he opened his eyes in the physical world. 

The fire was warm, and it was...familiar. 

Sarda existed now in his body, in a way that he had always struggled with. His body felt the warmth of the fire, his eyes saw my body, and he reacted without shame. 

I welcomed him. 

I was shaking at the sudden turn of the tide. Unneeded grief gathered in my throat and suddenly I was sobbing like a child, but I welcomed him with the fullest internal consensus my mind had ever known. 

He was with me, and I was home.

—

It took longer than last time, I was pretty sure...but last time, the fire had burst from his control like a supernova, and had burned out just as fast. 

We were resting, but he wasn’t quite back yet. 

I stroked his face with my fingertips, cherishing the feel of his skin. His eyes were on me, but they were still strange. 

“You’ll be back,” I said. “I promise. I said I would find you.”

For a moment, I thought I saw a flash of comprehension. 

“Are you ready to come home?”

His eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly. 

“Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “It’s okay if you’re just in there somewhere for now.”

But still. Maybe.

I let my fingers brush to the meld points on his face, points I had long since memorized, and closed my eyes. 

_Sarda._

I was met with blank curiosity. 

I let a smile ripple through us, and felt a sudden burst of love escape my heart. 

The curiosity turned toward it. It swirled around it and reached out as though to touch it. 

And, with a cascading sense of _being_ crystallizing all at once, the blankness was _him_ again. 

He gasped as he suddenly remembered he had lungs, and his eyes shot from blank to crowded with emotion. Terror flashed through him again and he flinched away from me.

“It’s all right,” I said, going back to stroking his face. “It’s all right. It’s over.”

He blinked a few times, trying to shake off the confusion. “It’s…over?”

“Yes,” I said softly. “It’s over. You’re back.”

He closed his eyes for a moment. A long shudder passed through him, echoed by flashes of every possible shade of emotion. But when it was done, he slowly sank into my arms and let me hold him.

“How do you feel?” I said softly.

“I...do not know.”

“Then let me feel for both of us,” I said, and offered him my joy.

—

“How is he?” said T’Kau from the screen. 

“Sleeping,” I said. “Before that….I guess ‘shaken’ starts to cover it.”

She let that tiny smile grace her lips. “He will need time to begin to process what he has gone through. But in the end...he _chose_ to go through it.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. He did.”

“The first time ripped that choice away from him, and that was what wounded him so deeply. This time, you gave him back his self-determination.”

I blinked, and frowned a little. “I couldn’t...I couldn’t drag him through hell.”

“And you did not try. And because of that, he will find this a source of healing.”

“Of _healing?_ ” I said. “I mean….I’m glad it’s over, but…”

“Some traumas are best healed by avoiding the experience. But others are not. Tell me, if you will—did he also struggle with your touch at first?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But he didn’t _have_ to touch me.”

“No,” said T’Kau. “In that case, there was an intrinsic draw that would have let him begin to approach the experience on his own. But I suspect you found that, with each experience, he overwrote a little more of the part of his trauma that involved touching you.”

“I...yeah.”

T’Kau nodded. “This is different, and also exactly the same. No new experience will erase the old, but they can balance it. Even though circumstance forced his hand—experiencing it as an act of _volition_ rather than an act of _violation_ will provide him with an enormous counterweight.”

“I still wish he hadn’t had to.”

“Of course. Some violations are unnecessary and wholly harmful. But others can be experienced involving matters necessary to preserve life. It is never an easy thing to navigate when that occurs.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say for long enough that I approached a polite Vulcan pause. 

“So…” I started. “...what happens next time? Will it be easier?”

“I suspect so,” said T’Kau. “He will have _now_ to draw from. But do not make him think of it just yet. For now, you have today, and many todays to come, before he needs to find that answer within himself.”

I nodded. “T’Kau….thank you.”

Once again T’Kau smiled that hidden smile. “I am glad to assist. If Sarda wishes to meet with me in person, I will be here a few days yet.”

I nodded. “I’ll let him know.”

“In that case, I will bid you farewell. Live long and prosper, Piper of Proxima.”

I smiled until I nearly cried and forgot the right response. 

“I will,” I said. “I will do both.”

—

I was just getting out of the sonic shower when I felt Sarda start to wake up again.

“Hey,” I said, wandering out of the head naked and smiling down at him. “How are you doing?”

“I am...hungry,” said Sarda. “Beyond that I have no certainty.”

“Hungry is an easy place to start. You feeling like breakfast in bed, or more like getting up?”

Sarda pulled his legs over the side of the bed. “I would like to get dressed.”

“Well, day-old uniform is your option,” I said sheepishly. “Our bags are on the ship.”

Sarda closed his eyes. “Will you get them?” he asked. “I do not think I can be on the ship right now.”

“Sarda, your ass is staying right here. I’ll get them, but after breakfast. I’m hungry too. So, naked or uniform?”

“...uniform.”

I grabbed it off the floor and brought it over. “You still shaky?”

“I believe I can manage.”

He was a bit slower than usual, but when he stood back in uniform, he looked _so_ much more like himself. Like he was almost comfortable in his own skin again. 

I smiled, and reached out to settle a wild spot in his hair. 

“All right,” I said. “Breakfast. Then bags.”

—

The transporter technician greeted me with a laugh. “Forgot to come home last night?”

I rubbed the back of my neck sheepishly. “Time flies when you’re having fun!”

“I’ll _bet,”_ said the technician, eyeing my rumpled uniform and grinning.

“Well of course,” I said innocently. “With the pleasant company of a dignified Vulcan matriarch and a planet full of fascinating historical landmarks, who _wouldn’t_ enjoy themself?”

The technician let out a belly laugh and I saluted badly on my way by. 

I had similar interactions twice more before I made it to my quarters...where I found Merete waiting. I blinked in surprise. 

She smiled. “The grapevine travels fast.”

I sighed a little. “Oh well. I can play along with that. Come in for a minute?”

The first thing I did was open my bag and grab the first non-rumpled-uniform outfit. 

“How are you? How is he?”

“We’re all right. Just a second.”

I ducked into the head to change, and emerged feeling like a new woman.

“There,” I said. “We’re all alright. Sarda had a rough time of it, but now that it’s over, he’s doing all right.”

Merete nodded. “I’m glad.”

“God, me too,” I said sincerely. “But...it went ok once he let himself let go.”

“Any chance he’ll let me take a discrete medical scan?”

“I think so,” I said, picking up my bag and swinging it over my shoulder. 

Merete picked up Sarda’s before I could get to it. “I’ll walk you to the transporter room.”

—

Sarda was dressed and showered and fed, and sitting staring out the window. 

There was a gorgeous courtyard below that showed off the beauty of the local plant life, but I was pretty sure Sarda wasn’t thinking about botany. 

I pulled up another chair to join him. 

“Do you want me to ask?”

He heard me, but he took a moment to himself. 

“I don’t know what…” He hesitated. “I am not sure I know anything.”

“Like what?”

Sarda sighed a little. “Everything is conflicted. It seems...”

He paused. “It was...better. It was better than I had feared. And now there is a part of me that insists—almost _wishes—_ that it had been worse.”

“Hmm.” I wished I had T’Kau’s wisdom...what would she say if she were here?

“Well,” I started, rather blindly, “there has to be a reason, right?”

He looked up at me. “There is no logical reason to wish things were worse.”

“I bet there is,” I insisted. “Your brain is smart, ok? So if there’s a part of it that wishes that, there must have been _something_ you would have gotten. Like. Presumably not _worth_ it, but _something._ ”

Sarda raised his eyebrow, which looked almost normal, over troubled eyes, that still needed time. 

“Very well,” he said. “For the sake of argument, what could I have gained if things had gone as badly as I had feared?”

“Well,” I started, hoping the sentence would finish itself for me. “ _Last_ time was bad...so if _this_ time was bad...it would have been...more...consistent…?”

Sarda frowned. 

“...yeah, I dunno. Ask T’Kau.”

“No,” said Sarda slowly. “There _is_ something there.”

“Wait, really?”

“Perhaps...not consistency. Validation.”

“Oh?”

Sarda looked out the window again. 

“I have spent seven years, to a greater or lesser capacity, both fearing this future and attempting to escape that past. If things _had_ gone badly...I would not have spent those years on a meaningless worry.”

I crossed my arms and glared at him. “Sarda. You did _not_ just imply that all the pain you’ve been through, and all the work you’ve put in to overcome it, were _meaningless.”_

“My fear did not materialize.”

I sighed. “Well, I mean, that definitely explains the part of you that wishes it _had._ But...Sarda...you say your fear didn’t materialize. What exactly _was_ that fear, then? You already told me you knew you wouldn’t hurt me, so it can’t be that. And it can’t be pon farr itself, because that _did_ materialize.”

Sarda flinched when I said its name instead of avoiding it with side-speak and euphemisms. 

“It still stings, doesn’t it?” I said sadly. “I’m sorry.”

“It...does.”

“Sorry,” I repeated. 

“It...still stings,” he said again, his tone had changed to one of surprise.

I frowned. “Is that...a good thing…?”

Sarda let out a breath and looked back at me. “It should not be comforting, any more than things going well should have been distressing.”

He was silent for a long moment. “And yet, both appear to be part of me.”

“Sarda,” I said. “You don’t have to justify either one to me.”

“Allowing myself the same grace is proving the harder task.”

I smiled. “Well. Maybe you can accept that they don’t make sense _yet?_ That, for today, you’re allowed to be just as confusing and confused as you are?”

“Perhaps.” 

I leaned forward and reached out to brush his knuckles with my thumb. “You have time,” I promised. “You have time to talk and think and meditate about it until you come to whatever it is you need to understand. But for now, I want you to know just how much I love that glorious brain of yours—even the parts that are hurt and scarred and struggling. Maybe _especially_ those parts. Because they are _you._ And as much as I wish you weren’t hurting—as much as I hope to watch those scars fade—they are you. And I want to offer those scars the same love as the rest of you. And when, someday, they might fade out of existence, I’ll love the new growth just as much.”

I shook my head slightly. “I think I lost track of my metaphors by the end there, but—”

“You do not need to justify that to me.”

I screeched to a halt, and then smiled. “No. No, I don’t.”

Sarda took a deep breath. “Uncertainty is difficult,” he said. “But...for today, I will accept it.”

“For today,” I said, feeling something warm flowing through the bond from him. 

He looked up at me, and turned his hand over to touch my fingers. “Yes,” he said. “With you.”

—

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Specifics about the suicidal thoughts:
> 
> -it’s very trigger-based.  
> -he’s seeking support.  
> -while he does think briefly about methods, none of them are workable irl.  
> -he’s not _forced_ to do anything he doesn’t chose to.


End file.
